Lindsay Davis was born and raised in Birmingham, read English at Oxford, then joined the civil service, which she left in 1985.She started writing about Romans in The Course of Honour, the remarkable true love story of the Emperor Vespasian and his mistress Antonia Caenis. Her research into First Century Rome inspired The Silver Pigs, the first outing for Falco and Helena, which was published in 1989. Starting as a spoof using a Roman âinformerâ as a classic, metropolitan private eye, the series has developed into a set of adventures in various styles which take place throughout the Roman world. The Silver Pigs won the Authorsâ Club Best First Novel award in 1989; she has since won the Crimewritersâ Association Dagger in the Library and Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, while Falco has won the Sherlock Award for Best Comic Detective. She has been Chair of the UK Crimewritersâ Association and Honorary President of the Classical Association. Her Official Website is www.lindseydavis.co.uk. We met recently at the Blue Met International Literary Festival in Montreal, and talked, among other things, about the historical mystery genre, Ellis Peters, Wilkie Collinsâs The Moonstone, foreshadowing, the treatment of women, killing characters off, good men, favourite plots and authors, and lessons that can be learned from the Romans, Please listen here:

Rawi Hage was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and lived through nine years of that countryâs civil war. He immigrated to Canada in 1992. He is a writer, a visual artist, and a curator whose debut novel, De Niroâs Game (2006), was shortlisted for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2006 Governor Generalâs Award for English fiction. It is currently shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. House of Anansi Press will publish Rawiâs eagerly anticipated second novel, Cockroach, in fall 2008. He lives in Montreal where I caught up with him at the Blue Met International Literary Festival. We talk about living in war conditions, New York, Deer Hunter and Russian roulette, art as memory, the absurdity of war, the dangers of organized religion, fundamentalism, politics and the writer, canoing and moose, womenâs clothing, Arabic poetry and the influence of fathers. Please listen here:

Donald Antrim is the author of three novels and a memoir entitled, The Afterlife, which is about the strained relationship he had with his mother, Louanne, an artist, teacher and alcoholic. In addition to receiving some of Americaâs most prestigious fellowships, he is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, a magazine that includes him amongst their twenty writers for the new century. We met at the Blue Met International Literary Festival in Montreal, and talk here about his motherâs death, Camus, writing on the edge, suffering and distraction, luxury beds, Donald Barthelme, anger, sarcasm, loss of humour, collecting books, and the appeal of first editions. Donald also treats us to a reading from The Afterlife, and as part of this, the dedication in Sir Philip Sidneyâs Arcadia. Copyright  2008 by Nigel Beale Please listen here:

Glenn Patterson was born in Belfast in 1961 and studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia under Malcolm Bradbury. He is the author of seven novels. The first, Burning Your Own (1988), set in Northern Ireland in 1969, won a Betty Trask Award and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. We met at the Blue Met International Literary Festival in Montreal to talk about reassessing the past, the development and urban topography of his home town Belfast, cities versus nations, Disney, Tolstoyâs theory of history, human complexity, his latest novel The Third Party, apathy, public houses, the minor impact of books, and how happy he is with his oeuvre. Copyright  2008 by Nigel Beale

Andrew OâHaganâs most recent novel, Be Near Me, has just won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It is the story of an English priest who takes over a small Scottish parish in a post-industrial town by the sea; a story of art and politics, love and faith, and the way we live now, which pretty well summarizes the conversation we had this past weekend at The Blue Met International Literary Festival in Montreal. More specifically we talked about tragedy, escape, the determination not to be determined, fathers, the blurred boundaries between fiction, memoir and journalism, the United States, the role of writer in society, Martin Amis and Islamism, parents, writing ones own life, and coloured doors in social housing projects. Copyright  2008 by Nigel Beale Please listen here:

In honour of Poetry Month, here is my interview with Canadian poet, critic and more recently, political writer, David Solway. We first discuss what constitutes a great poem in the context of âpoliticalâ and other agendas that some poets incorporate into their work. According to Solway, great poems consist of authentic, incontestable, memorable language, with vivid power, lapidary quality and prodigious rhetorical flow, which takes time, education, reflection and maturity to work itself into themes of human importance; synoptic views of the complexity of human life; a confluence of eloquent language and major subject which has something important to say and which will resonate with contemporary and future generations. Great poems are like Switzerland, says Solway: candidates must pass through a stringent, careful, fine-meshed filter before they are granted citizenship. It is posterity that decides what is great. Aphoristic memorability and the wish to keep the words alive in the mind, determines its greatness. Listen here to part one of our conversation:

Sally Cooperâs second novel, Tell Everything,delves into the darkest regions of the human soul, and lends credence to Kiplingâs line: The female of the species is deadlier than the male. During our conversation about Tell Everything we discuss topics including: the media and murder, Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, âbody parts in ponds, Rapunsil and crime plays, three way sex, the blurred, complicated lines of consent, the fear of self revelation, and love, self protection, shame and acceptance, boxes and cameras, novel writing as catharsis, iguanas in snow drifts, crime scene photographs, facing moral issues, true crime magazines, Michael Redhillâs short story The Victim, and women being every bit as predatory as men. Sally Cooper grew up in Inglewood, Ontario, population 400. She has an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Guelph, and has published in such places as Shift, Blood & Aphorisms, Carousel, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and eye weekly. Her first novel, Love Object, came out in 2002 to critical acclaim. She currently teaches creative writing at Humber College and lives and writes in Hamilton, Ontario. Listen here:

Novelist, screenwriter and essayist Larry McMurtry is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1985 novel Lonesome Dove, a sweeping historical epic that follows ex-Texas Rangers as they drive cattle from the Rio Grande to Montana. He grew up on a ranch outside of Archer City, Texas, which is the model for his fictional town of Thalia. A book collector, McMurtry purchased a rare book store in Washington, D.C.âs Georgetown neighborhood in 1970 and named it Booked Up. In 1988he opened a second Booked Up in Archer City, establishing the town as a Book City. This store is arguably the largest single used bookstore in the United States, carrying somewhere between 400,000 and 450,000 titles. McMurtry is well-known for the film adaptations of his work, especially Hud (from the novel Horseman, Pass By), The Last Picture Show; James L. Brooksâs Terms of Endearment, and Lonesome Dove, which became an enormously popular television mini-series. In 2006, he was co-winner (with Diana Ossana) of both the Best Screenplay Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Brokeback Mountain. I interviewed him as part of a project Iâm doing for the Canadian Booksellers Association. We talk about his latest book Untitled Fiction, his life as a book rancher, having the right books, junk, the fun of the hunt, book scouting, catalogues, bookstores and cultural vitality, keeping stock fresh, burning out on fiction and movies, the declining number of used book stores, and optimism for the future. For more interviews and book reviews www.nigelbeale.com

Haslamâs Books, now Floridaâs largest new The Wonderful World of Books, and reviewed books on WSUN radio. He also appeared as a regular guest on WTOG-TV. Elizabeth operated book fairs at local schools for 25 years and now conducts field trips of âFloridaâs largest book storeâ for elementary classes. Both have been active in the American Booksellerâs Association (Charles was president from 1978 - 1980). They have taught in Bookseller Schools and written chapters in The Manual of Bookselling. Both are published authors. In 1973, the third generation came into the business: daughter Suzanne (who also authored a chapter in the Manual on Bookselling ) and husband Ray Hinst a history, classics & military expert. Ray and I talk here about book re-printers, early Baedekers, not collecting your own inventory, the explosion in self publishing and authors who want bookstores to carry their works and provide signing events, collecting what you like, and the error of passing up on buying opportunities.

Ian Brookes is Editor-in-Chief of The Chambers Dictionary which was first published in 1901 and most recently updated in 2006. We talk here about lexicographers, Samuel Johnson, Scotland, the speed of language change getting quicker, Chambersâ unique focus on old, Scottish, literary, historical words with humorous, sardonic definitions, such as mallemaroking and pock pudding, use of the dictionary by crossword puzzle and word game enthusiasts, Wikipediaâs Hawaiian roots, the charm of browsing, the influence of rap, urban slang, multiculturalism, and instant messaging, cookery terms and the pain of being a teacher. For more interviews and book reviews www.nigelbeale.com

Kathryn Court joined Penguin Books in 1977 and became Editorial Director two years later. In l984 she was named Editor in Chief of Viking Penguin and in 1992 Senior Vice-President, Publisher, and Editor in Chief of Penguin Books. She was named President of Penguin Books in August 2000. Authors she has worked with include: Reinaldo Arenas, Andrea Camilleri, J.M. Coetzee, Slavenka Drakulic, Mary Relinda Ellis, Robert Fagles, Josephine Humphreys, Garrison Keillor, Nora Okja Keller, Donna Leon, Mary McGarry Morris, John Mortimer, Richard Rodriguez, C.J. Samsom, Jim Trelease, and William Trevor. We met last summer at BookExpo in New York, and talk here about: the role of publisher, artist Chris Wareâs funky Candide cover, new ways of selling things you already own, showing the young that reading can be fun, finding new authors and having faith in them, Andrea Camilleri and the benefit of buying series, hard cover versus soft cover sales, 4000 title backlists that finance front lists, J.M. Coetzeeâs greatness, sales and distain for interviewers, the need for confidence in young editors in order to convince others that their picks are as good as they say they are, advertising in book review sections and how it doesnât work, how emotional novels and those with voices women can identify with sell best, the three million copy selling The Memory Keeperâs Daughter, the sales power of word of mouth, and the joyful intensity of working as part of an editorial teamâas a happy few against the world.

Patrick McGahern has been selling books in Ottawa, Canada since 1969. His store specializes in used and rare books: Canadiana, Americana, Arctic, Antarctic, Travel, Natural History about ILAB and AbeBooks, and finally, about simply doing the work.

Margie McMillan is co-owner of the award winning Granny Bates Childrenâs Bookstore in St. Johnâs Newfoundland. We talk here about longevity and research as a reason for success, the brilliance of Graham Oakley and The Church Mice, the difference between back lists and mid-lists, schools as bread and butter, book sellers as literary critics, driving through the swiss alps, new products that are called books, movies and cereal.

Poet and novelist John Burnside was born in 1955 in Dunfermline, Scotland. He studied English and European Languages at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. A former computer software engineer, he has been a freelance writer since 1996. His first collection of poetry, The Hoop, was published in 1988 and won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award. Other poetry collections include Common Knowledge (1991), Feast Days (1992), winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and The Asylum Dance (2000), winner of the Whitbread Poetry Award and shortlisted for both the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year) and the T. S. Eliot Prize. We talk here, at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival, of his love of Milton, Eliot and ice-hockey, about poetry being written mainly to impress girls (see here for more on this hot topic), the Madonna-Whore complex, Charles Wright as the best living poet in the world, and what metaphor does in our lives

John Freeman is president of The National Book Critics Circle. Founded in 1974, the NBCC is a non-profit organization consisting of nearly 700 active book reviewers who honor quality writing and communicate with one another about common concerns. We met recently and talked, among other things, about the NBCCâs awards program, an impressive new blog site called Critical Mass, and the Campaign to Save Book Reviews, which is addressing the alarming shrinkage of newspaper book review sections across North America.

Bernard Margolis is President of the Boston Public Library (BPL). Founded in 1848, it was the first large free municipal library in the United States. Mr. Margolis has served on the Governing Council of the 63,000-member American Library Association (ALA), and has won many awards including âColorado Librarian of the Year,â two John Cotton Dana library public relations awards, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Artsâ âAward of Excellenceâ for his library-sponsored âImagination Celebration.â Heâs also a master storyteller as youâll find out. We talk here about libraries as a public good, a culture of words and books designed to help everyone improve their lives, French ventriloquist and originator of the concept of the modern library Alexandre Vattemare (1796-1864), the U.S. as a leader in realizing this concept, immigration and self learning, an informed citizenry as the best defense of liberty, democratic access to information, BPL as the first to have a newspaper room, branch libraries and a separate childrenâs room, the Red Sox and the Yankees, why the ebook hasnât replaced the paperback, Brewster Kahle versus Google and the Internet archive, and the question of whether or not information will be âfree for allâ to improve the world.

John Wronoski is a rare book dealer who specializes in literature, and primary works in the history of ideas in English, German, French, Spanish, and Russian. His shop, Lame Duck Books, contains the most significant selection of 19th and 20th century Spanish language literature in the world, and important originals of 17th and 18th century English poetry. In addition to performing the traditional role of bookseller, John serves as agent in the institutional placement of archives for some of the 20th Century's most important authors. It is in this capacity, as literary archives dealer, that we talk here about, among other things: the importance of recognizing value in the rare book trade, paper production in the lives of writers, evident spiritual input in the process of creation, the evaluation, cataloguing, packaging and marketing of manuscripts, the comparative value of long-hand versus typed documents, the compatibility of pen and paper with the flow of thought, the value of hand written/type-written correspondence versus email, rich book dealers getting richer, Frederic Tuten's Tin Tin in the World, loosing $1 million manuscripts and adoption agencies. (Please note the interview was conducted before the British Library purchased the Pinter archive)

Elias Khoury is author of eleven novels including Little Mountain and Gates of the City. He is currently professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at New York University, and editor in chief of the literary supplement of Beirutâs daily newspaper, An-Nahar. We talk here, at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival, about his latest novel in English Gate of the Sun, of how great literature speaks to what is human and how religion doesnât; of how telling stories helps us to overcome death, and how knowledge helps to overcome power; of keys, loss, hatred and love; of how important the right to story, memory and language is to the existence of a people; of the double tragedy of Palestine in 1948, the real one and the fact that the telling of this catastrophe has not been permitted; of how reading literature helps us discover ourselves and of how literature attempts to give meaning to the meaninglessness of life. Copyright  2007 by Nigel Beale

Peter Behrensâ short stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Tin House, Saturday Night, and The National Post and have been anthologized in Best Canadian Stories and Best Canadian Essays. He was born in Montreal and lives on the coast of Maine with his wife and son. We talk here, at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival, among other things about voice and poetry in his debut novel The Law of Dreams, Winner of The 2006 Governor Generalâs Literary Award for Fiction. It tells the story of a young manâs struggle to survive the Great Famine in Ireland of 1847. On his odyssey through Ireland and Britain, and across the Atlantic to Canada Fergus Oâbrien encounters death, violence, sexual heat, âboy soldiers, brigands, street toughs and charming, willful girls â all struggling for survival in the aftermath of natural catastrophe magnified by political callousness and brutal neglect. â Think Dickens meets J.M. Coetzee. The book has been hailed by many reputable media outlets including The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Lydia Davis is a contemporary American author and translator of French. From 1974 to 1978 she was married to Paul Auster, with whom she has a son. She has published six collections of short stories, including The Thirteenth Woman and Other Stories (1976) and Break It Down (1986). Her most recent collection is not Samuel Johnson Is Indignant, but rather Varieties of Disturbance, published by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. Her stories are acclaimed for their brevity, poetry, philosophy and humour. Many are only one or two sentences long. We talk here, at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival, about the role of the translator, her Swannâs Way, measuring rooms three inches at a time, becoming Proust as an actor might a character, dialogue being more of a translation challenge than description because speech is born of environment and times, and the goal of creating living language thatâs timeless. Copyright  2007 by Nigel Beale

Arthur Galwin has collected clocks for more than 30 years. In so doing he has amassed an impressive reference library of books on the topic. Not driven to collect First Editions, Arthurâs primary motivation has been to cover the waterfront, to pull together as comprehensive a collection of books on clocks as can be found anywhere in the world. During our conversation Arthur refers to the person who restored John Harrisonâs extraordinary marine timekeepers. That person is Lt Cdr Rupert T. Gould. His story can be found in Time Restored: The Harrison timekeepers and R.T. Gould, the man who knew (almost) everything, by Jonathan Betts. Arthure also refers to a number of âclassicâ book on clocks. The include: Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers, and The Watch and Clockmakers Handbook: Dictionary and Guide, both by F.J. Britten, English Domestic Clocks by Cescinsky and Webster, and French Clocks the World Over, by Tardy. As for us non-technical types interested in this fascinating field Arthur recommends Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World by David Landes. Copyright  2007 by Nigel Beale

C.S. Richardson is an accomplished book designer who has worked in publishing for over twenty years. He is a multiple recipient of the Alcuin Award (Canadaâs highest honour for excellence in book design) and a frequent lecturer on publishing, design and communications. A rare bird indeed, he recently published his first novel The End of the Alphabet, and is currently at work on his second. We talk here about C.S. Lewis, the role of the book designer, the award winning Bedside Book of Birds, âthumbage,â how the best book design is invisible, the best designers currently at work in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, and Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, published by Chatto and Windus in England, and Knopf in the U.S. as one of the best designed books in recent memory. Copyright  2007 by Nigel Beale

Barbara Clubb is City Librarian and CEO of the Ottawa Public Library, past president of the Canadian Library Association, a member of the International Relations Committee of the ALA/Public Library Association; a director for the Canadian Writers Foundation and Monthly Book Reviewer for CBC Ottawa Radio One. In this fascinating, wide ranging conversation we talk about the role of a city librarian now, at the turn of the 21 century; about library as placeâwhere loitering is okay; accessibility, prescriptive versus reflective provision of information; the move from education to recreation and culture; Harry Potter in plastic; downloading copyrighted books; the zero list; a contest between librarians and Google; leveraging Google; the book as client versus people as clients; nine million items going in and out; and the necessity for librarians to be the opposite of their anti-social stereotype. Copyright  2006 by Nigel Beale

John Metcalf is a highly regarded author who happens to have edited many of Canadaâs foremost short story writers including Lisa Moore, Alice Munro, and Michael Winter. Born in Carlisle, England, and educated at the University of Bristol, he emigrated to Canada in 1962. In addition to his own writings (novels, stories and essays), he currently holds the unsalaried post of Senior Editor at the Porcupineâs Quill of Erin, Ontario and is the editor of Canadian Notes and Queries. He resides in Ottawa, Ontario with his wife, Myrna. We talk here about the role of the editor, game playing, the placement of words and punctuation, manipulating emotions, unclogging channels between writers and readers, diplomacy, nouns, hammers, electric current, anti-Americanism, ignorant Canadian nationalists and inferiority complexes. Copyright  2006 by Nigel Beale

Amanda Earl writes erotic fiction in Ottawa, Canada, as much for her own pleasure as anything else. Her stories have consistently been selected for publication in Carroll and Grafâs annual Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica. Amanda publishes and writes poetry, is managing editor of the Bywords Quarterly Journal, and hosts Bywords.ca, a website invaluable to Ottawanians interested in local literary events. We talk here about the definitions of erotica and pornography (a common joke: âErotica is when you use a feather. Pornography is when you use the whole chicken.â), red wine versus white, connecting with and arousing readers, giving pleasure, the act, golden showers, being bad, the Erotica Readers and Writers Association, S&M, compelling characters and work as prostitution.

Ronald Cohen is author of the Bibliography of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill 3 Volume Set (ISBN: 0826472354) published in 2006: a ârichly annotated workâ containing thousands of entries, with detailed descriptions of each work by Churchill, including information on content, typography,paper, illustrations, maps, facsimiles, bindings, dust jackets, publication and printing history, translations, and library/collection locations, plus circumstances of publication. Cohenâs fascination with Churchill began during his time with The Economist in London, shortly after his graduation from Harvard University. He began collecting Churchilliana in 1969. The publication of this major work is the culmination of 25 yearsâ dedicated research. Cohen is the National Chair of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, a lawyer, founding Chairman of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, a Genie award-winning film producer, and President of the Friends of Library and Archives Canada. We talk here generally about the art of bibliography, specifically about binding and centriod colour charts, altruism, accessibility, building road-maps, how many bibliographers start off as disgruntled collectors, experiencing the thrill and joy of collecting without having to lay out the dough, bibliography as storytelling, innovative periodical entry descriptions, errata, when to stop, how Cohen always got it wrong, surrendering, and uncharted works bolting from the undergrowth.

Barbara Reidâs Plasticine artwork makes her books instantly recognizable. They have won acclaim around the world, and many awards. We talk here about what makes her so good, about great childrenâs book illustrators, the accurate conveyance of emotion, mice in subways, making room for the imagination, chiaroscuro, working in ice cream, wanting to show things to those you love, pony tails, playing hooky and war.

Ramona Dearing lives in St. Johnâs, Newfoundland, and is the latest member of the longstanding (and increasingly famous) fiction collective The Burning Rock to publish a collection of short fiction. Dearing works for CBC Radio where she is currently busy putting together a nationally broadcast program featuring young Canadian artists. So Beautiful was published in 2004 by The Porcupineâs Quill Press. We talk here about her stories, my favourites, and hers, bodies in bags, judging oneâs own work, doing the right thing, frustration, Christian brothers at Mount Cashel, dogs, Kafka at the CBC, the importance of radio and the weather to Newfoundlanders, Brad Pitt and parallel plot lines. Copyright  2006 by Nigel Beale

Lisa Mooreâs fiction has been published widely in literary magazines and in anthologies. Her two collections of short stories, Degrees of Nakedness and Open have received praise for their âsupple sensuality and emotional authenticity.â She lives in Newfoundland. We talked there, and here about her recently published first novel, Alligator, about tea, pine martins, time, the exotic, Tasmania, Cezanne, St. JohnÃââs as a bowl of oranges, Cubism, being in the present, survival, light, if itâs ever okay not to be good, cadence and wit in storytelling, and the colour blueâquite a few things really. Copyright  2006 by Nigel Beale